Bonnie Mitchell's research and creative interests include electronic interactive installation, 3D particle systems, interface design, experimental animation, multimedia development, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Ms. Mitchell's artworks explore spatial and experiential relationships to our physical, social, cultural and psychological environment through interaction. Many of these installations explored the sculptural capabilities of shadow and light using computer graphics, sensors, projections, and computer programming. The installations often employed elements such as semitransparent scrims, mirrors, hundreds of fluorescent light bulbs and thousands of strands of yarn. Over the past 20 years she has developed numerous interactive installations including Virtual Presence (1992), which used a Polaroid sonar sensor to measure the distance of a viewer to the installation, creating a pseudo-dialog between human and machine. Bonnie's Inside Out: Re-evaluating Personal Values (2000) encouraged users to touch hand-shaped pressure sensors to project fragments of images throughout the environment. Encounters (2007), invites the viewer to sit in a sensor-enhanced seat thus provoking a figure to emerge and and ask thought-provoking questions. Her most recent piece, Internal Distance (2010), uses projections on walls and into hand blown glass objects to create an immersive environment that comments on the internal conflicts we all face.

As an experimental animator, Bonnie Mitchell collaborates with Elainie Lillios, an electroacoustic composer. Mainly working with Maya and After Effects, Mitchell programs custom particle effects and composites using hundreds of layers. Their animation, 2BTextures, has been screened at over 30 festivals around the world. It was part of the Visual Music Marathon in NYC, SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans, the Melbourne International Animation Festival and the London International Animation Festival, RedStick Animation Festival, Dérapage, iDMAa IDEAS Festival, SoundImageSound in California, Society for Electro-acoustic Music, Fast, Faster FAST! In Boston, neoPhonia New Music Ensemble in Atlanta and Les Sommets du cinema d'animation de Montreal at the Cinémathèque Québécoise, and more.

Mitchell's past work included a series of collaborative world-wide Internet art projects. Early in 1992, using FTP and email, she organized the ChainArt Project which involved over 130 people from 15 different countries. In 1994, she coordinated the Digital Journey project; 1995 the Diversive Paths project, and also in 1995 she organized the ChainReaction project which premiered at SIGGRAPH 95 and ISEA 95. ChainReaction currently has over 350 images and over 140 participants in 16 countries. As Worlds Collide focused on the integration of 2D and 3D imagery in a time-based environment and invited participants from around the world to submit images which automatically were converted to Quicktime VR artistic worlds.

Bonnie Mitchell is the president and art director of CreativeMyndz Multimedia Studios in Bowling Green (creativemyndz.com). CreativeMyndz is currently developing the Gateways to Art ancillaries version 1.0 to accompany Gateways to Art, by Debbie DeWitte, Ralph Larmann, Kathryn Shields, Thames and Hudson, London. This two year long project consists of 35 videos, three to nine minutes long focusing on art techniques, historical artists and monuments. CreativeMyndz also developed 141 interactive Flash exercises focusing on art and design elements and principles as well as 40 PowerPoint presentation containing approximately 1000 fine art images. All materials will accompany the textbook via a DVD and on the website and will be published in 2012.

The Art Showcase DVD published in 2006 accompanied Art Talk by Rosalind Ragans and Art in Focus by Gene A. Mittler, published by Glencoe/MacGraw-Hill in Los Angeles. This DVD contained hundreds of interactive modules and over 500 fine art images. The CreativeMyndz team built a searchable database with zoom capabilities, along with artist profiles, art technique videos, over 600 Spanish and English vocabulary words (audio and text) and the ability to create a slide show by selecting and arranging the images on the DVD.

The Core Concepts in Humanities series was the largest project to date and was published by McGraw-Hill. This DVD included 250 interactive exercises that taught the elements and principles of dance, literature, theatre, visual arts, music, architecture, and music. It also contained over an hour of video demonstrations with visual examples, and visual timelines for each disciplines with the ability to compare and contrast developments in each discipline. CreativeMyndz developed assignments that allowed the students to bridge their experiences outside the classroom with the learning that took place on the DVD.

CreativeMyndz also developed the Core Concepts in Art CD-ROM series which was included with Launching the Imagination by Mary Stewart, Art Fundamentals by Otto Ocvirk, et al., Art Across Time by Laurie Adams, Responding to Art by Robert Burrson, A History of Western Art by Laurie Adams, Gilbert's Living with Art by Mark Getlein and Frames of Reference by Marquardt et al. This series included 15 videos and hundreds of interactive exercises that teach the elements and principles of art and design.

The Buildings Across Time DVD, published in 2004 by McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, accompanied a book by the same name written by Moffett, Fazio and Wodehouse, and included over 1000 images and multiple levels of interactive visual materials and educational games.

Bonnie Mitchell is currently an Associate Professor at Bowling Green State University in Digital Arts, in Bowling Green, Ohio. She teaches courses in interactive multimedia, 3D and 2D animation, Motion Graphics, Compositing, Mobile Computing, Particle Systems and Experimental Animation. One of her research interests is the use of new and innovative technology such as immersive environments in teaching and learning.

In 2006, Ms. Mitchell was the SIGGRAPH Art Show Chair and coordinated two new venues, the Beyond Boundaries, Charles Csuri, 1963-present Retrospective and the Electronically Mediated Performances. The SIGGRAPH Art Show was touted as the largest art show in SIGGRAPH's history with 82 Wall-hung 2D, 3D and 4D work, 15 installation artworks, 7 screen-based interactive works, 6 sculptures, 14 animations, 10 invited artworks, 7 Art Paper presentations, 4 Art Panels, and 8 Art Sketches (short presentations). Mitchell coordinated all aspects of this show. The Beyond Boundaries exhibition featured 73 large-scale images, animations and sculptural objects. This exhibition marked the first time Csuri's computer art was presented as an extensive body of work. Janice Glowski from OSU was selected to curate the show and work directly with Csuri to select and frame the work as well as organize the catalog. The Electronically Mediated Performances consisted of 28 performances and 3 ongoing happenings by musicians, dancer troupes, theatrical performers, VJs, and performance artists that use technology in innovative and creative ways. Heather Elliott-Famularo was the art gallery committee member that worked directly with all the performers to schedule rehearsals and monitor performances.

Mitchell volunteered for SIGGRAPH in a number of capacities since 1990. Recently she was a member of the Digital Arts Lifetime Achievement Awards Committee. She was the Director at Large in the early 1990s, a member of the education committee for over 10 years, a member of the Animation Festival and Emerging Technologies Jury, a member of the art show committee numerous times, and a member of the communications committee in the 1990s. She has developed numerous projects for SIGGRAPH including the Art Show Gallery online, the first SIGGRAPH graphical Web site, the first Education Directory and animated promotion tapes for the conferences. As a participant in SIGGRAPH, Bonnie has exhibited her work in the art gallery venue many times over the last 15 years. She has presented courses and been a participant on panels and delivered talks.

Animator and artist Bonnie Mitchell, and electroacoustic composer Elainie Lillios, collaborate to create experimental works focusing on the intricate relationships shared between audio and visuals. Over the past 10 years they have created large-scale animated interactive installations and experimental animations that seek to influence participants and viewers emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

Elainie Lillios's music is influenced by her fascination with listening, sound, space, time, immersion, and anecdote. Commissions from ASCAP/SEAMUS, International Computer Music Association, La Muse en Circuit, New Adventures in Sound Art, Rèseaux, LSU Center for Computation and Technology, and various performers; grants from Ohio Arts Council, Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music, Ohio Board of Regents, and National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts; awards from CIMESP (Brazil), Russolo (Italy), Schaeffer (France), IMEB (France) and others. Recordings available on Empreintes DIGITALes, StudioPANaroma, La Muse en Circuit, and SEAMUS labels, plus online at http://mustec.bgsu.edu/~lillios

Bonnie Mitchell and Anthony Fontana collaboratively co-administrate the Bowling Green State University's Virtual Campus. They also run a learning community for faculty, staff and grad students entitled Pedagogy and Scholarship Using Mobile, Online, and Virtual Environments (PSMOV). They have presented at numerous conferences including the Second Life Community Conference in Boston, Internet Research Conference in Denmark, and more.

Anthony Fontana is a Learning Technologies Consultant and an Instructor of Art at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Anthony's pedagogical research involves the importance of divergent methodologies in the classroom, such as "play", integrative teaching strategies, and educational technology applications that optimize learning outcomes by providing channels of content transfer most familiar to the student; something he calls "The Multichronic Classroom". This work focuses on the use of immersive learning environments such as Second Life, social networks such as Facebook, and the way in which students stay engaged, socially motivated, and productive.